To the Wall
by K Hanna Korossy
Summary: Season One missing scenes: From Dean slamming him to that bridge, to Sam returning the favor against a motel wall, Sam's learned a lot in the last year.


_For the KazCon story auction, dedicated to "the Varmints"_

**To the Wall**  
K Hanna Korossy

One minute, Dean had him slammed up against the bridge strut, angrily in his face. The next, they were throwing themselves off said bridge, trying to escape the possessed car.

And Dean wondered why he hadn't missed the hunting life.

Sam managed to grab the pipe that ran along the outside of the span and pull himself up. He'd felt Dean fly past him as he dove, however, and figured his brother had deliberately thrown himself clear to avoid knocking Sam off. Even as Sam clambered back up on the railing, he was already frantically scanning the dark water beneath for any sign of life.

"Dean!"

The water was murky, just shallow enough that someone could break their neck diving in, just deep enough to wash a body invisibly away. Sam's heart sped up even beyond its adrenaline boost.

"Dean!"

And then he saw him, his brother crawling out of the river into the mud below. Sluggish but alive, snapping back a tired, "What?"

Sam could breathe again. "Hey. Y'all right?"

On his back now, Dean held up his hand in an _okay_ sign. "I'm super."

Sam laughed, adrenaline switching to euphoria, and climbed back up onto the bridge.

One glance at the car revealed it was stopped at the end of the bridge, idling and apparently unanimated. Sam kept a wary eye on it as he sidled past to where the railing sloped down.

Dean was moving all right on his own, so Sam just waited for him. He held out his hand as Dean got near, and his brother took it and let Sam haul him back up onto pavement. He was dripping with mud, coated head to toe, but Sam didn't let that stop him from squeezing one slippery shoulder, leaning down to peer into his eyes. "You sure you're okay, man? That was a pretty serious drop."

Dean batted him away. "Dude, I'm fine, back off."

Sam did, silently retreating a few feet. He'd been the one who'd told Dean he could hunt alone. It was only Dean's quiet, _Well, I don't want to, _that had changed Sam's mind. But he was having second thoughts.

Dean instantly closed the gap between them and nudged him toward the waiting car. "If she hurt my baby, I am so toasting her, dead kids or not."

Sam followed slowly behind, adrenaline and euphoria both having given way to the inevitable worry about his family. Dean checked the car, yelled at Constance, glowered at his brother when Sam remarked on his brother's smell. He dug a tarp out of the trunk and spread it out on the seat before getting in to drive them to the nearest motel. He didn't even answer when Sam offered to drive, just looked at him blankly.

Kansas was playing on the car radio. The car windows steamed from the warm humidity, and the comforting familiarity unwound the tension between them. Sam glanced at his brother's profile, the face that, a week ago, he wasn't sure when he'd ever see again. Remembering the bewildered loss on it even as Dean's hands had shoved Sam back against the bridge. The quiet tone.

_Don't talk about her that way._

Their dad wasn't the only one who missed their mom and whose crusade in life it was to find what had killed her. Sam couldn't even remember Mary Winchester, but Dean had known and loved her, too. Somehow, Sam had never realized he was the odd man out in their family, not their father.

"You got taller," Dean said out of the blue, eyes on the road.

"You didn't," Sam smirked back.

A grimace, but Dean seemed to be working on something. It took a little while before he finally cocked his head and got it out. "You look good, Sammy."

Sam looked at him a long moment. They teased, glanced, touched, insulted. They'd never overtly complimented, never needed to. The fact Dean did now lodged a lump in Sam's throat. "Uh…thanks."

Dean rolled his shoulders, reached over and turned the radio up.

Sam walked into the motel office at Dean's shoulder, and the older Winchester never once shot Sam a look to back off.

The only thing worse than not knowing how his brother felt, was knowing and still having to leave.

00000

Dean had been right. As always, darn it.

They'd finished their most recent hunt, a recalcitrant pair of goblins, early in the morning, then come back to the room and crashed. Sam had woken first, sleep nightmare-free as it was increasingly these days, but still not long or restful. Dean had joined him in getting up not much later, Sam suspected in sympathetic insomnia. It was mid-afternoon by then, and while Dean had run out for Thai—no coincidence that was one of Sam's favorites—Sam had flicked through the channels without much interest. Until he'd landed on_ The Princess Bride. _

Yeah, okay, so it was about princesses and brides_, _and the first time they'd watched it, Dean had been as derisive as the _Wonder Years_ kid at the beginning of the movie. But it had only taken the first sword fight to win him over. By the end of the movie, it was a solid favorite of them both. They'd watched it every time they caught it on TV after that.

Sam had never told Dean how many of those childhood rituals he'd repeated, alone at college, to find some measure of comfort in all he'd lost.

Dean returned just in time for the best parts, and they'd eaten and watched in comfortable silence, Sam sprawled across the foot of Dean's bed while Dean sat cross-legged at the head. Dean quoted dialogue with the movie, critiqued the weapons, and made fun of Westley for being a pansy. Sam just groaned and enjoyed.

And then they got to the Billy Crystal part and _he's only mostly dead_, which had always been Sam's favorite scene. It was funny enough, but with Dean's additions to the dialogue and a jab in the shoulder as he reminisced about the time Sam and he had reenacted the same scene over a dead wampus, it was hysterical.

Sam's chuckle became an unfettered laugh.

He felt more than heard Dean still behind him. Sam rolled onto his back, casting a contented, curious gaze at his brother. "What?"

The corner of Dean's mouth tugged up. "Nothin'."

Sam snorted, rolling his head on the bedspread. "Dude, seriously. What?"

"Nothin'! It's just…haven't heard you laugh for a while, man, that's all."

Sam's smile faded. That couldn't be true, could it? They'd been watching a lot of comedies lately, which now that he thought of it was probably for his sake. Dean's teasing hadn't been quite so hard-edged of late, either, not since…

Sam's mirth died.

The expression on Dean's face flickered. "Just forget it, it was stupid. Watch the movie, geek."

Sam pushed himself back up on one arm, staring blindly at the TV screen. Dean had been right. After…Jess, he'd told Sam it would get better, that someday he'd even find reason to laugh again. Sam hadn't believed it; the hole he'd been in then had been so very dark. But happiness had quietly crept up on him, in Dean's gentle joshing, in reminders of the good in life, in the lame sentimentality of their childhood.

Jess hadn't helped him nearly as much in getting over the loss of Dean as Dean had with losing her.

Sam huffed softly at the screen. "So, you think we could find a holocaust cloak somewhere?"

"You planning on storming any castles, Sammy?" Relief in his big brother's voice.

"Maybe." And he smiled at the TV, feeling tender warmth where once there'd been only rawness.

00000

They crouched at the edge of the property, straining to see in the dim moonlight.

"Anything?" Sam asked after a long minute, glancing briefly at Dean's profile.

His brother's brow was drawn as he concentrated. Then let out a slow breath. "Nope. Would help if it wasn't overcast. Or a new moon."

"Or if it was daylight," Sam added with a smile.

Dean shrugged. "True."

They stared another minute, Sam straining to hear or see something.

"Your spidey senses aren't picking up anything, are they?" Dean abruptly spoke up.

Sam puffed out an irritated breath. "Dean—"

"Okay, okay, I was just askin'." A beat. "I mean, it's not like we need a lot, just—"

"Dean!"

Dean pivoted on one bent leg to face him, warming to his subject. "Seriously, dude—two prophetic dreams, a couple of visions about the same family, then nothing? What's up with that? I mean, why doesn't it give us something useful, like if Ugly's waiting out there to tear us into pieces? That would actually do us some good."

Sam pointedly turned away from him to stare across open, still acreage.

Silence. From Dean's shifting, he was already regretting what he'd said, but Sam didn't give an inch. It wasn't funny. It wasn't even okay.

"Sammy…"

"Shut up, Dean."

Not that Dean had been making fun of him. Even now, Sam understood his frustration, one he himself shared: none of it made sense.

It was the fear that ate at him.

"Sam, I'm sorry, okay?"

He didn't bother answering.

It wasn't even his fear that was the worst, but rather Dean's, never shown outright but always there under the surface. The very reason Sam had hidden the truth about his dreams from Dean for so long. His brother had taken the revelation about Sam's premonitions about Jess and their house well a few months back, but when Sam had started to have the visions during the day, about unrelated people? And the one burst of TK? He'd been terrified anew of becoming what they hunted, of seeing revulsion and hatred in Dean's face.

It never came. Instead, Sam had found books on precognition stuffed into the trunk and under Dean's pillow, sites on prophetic dreams in the browser history, notes and theories scrawled into Dean's journal. Clearly, he was thinking about it. Clearly, he was worried.

Not so clearly, he didn't seem afraid. At least, not of his brother.

Sam's vision blurred. All that panicking, that secret burning inside him, and Dean was worried for him, not about him. Sam huffed a laugh, dropping his head and shaking it.

"What?" Dean asked guardedly next to him.

Sam gave him a sloppy, sideways smile. "I think my 'spidey sense' is ready to call this a bust and go get some dinner."

"Yeah?" Dean looked at him hopefully, and Sam doubted it was just because of the mention of food.

"Yeah. C'mon," he said, pulling Dean up by the collar of his jacket as Sam pushed himself to his feet. "I swear, Dean, sometimes I think you've got a tapeworm inside you."

"So says the weed who practically bankrupted Dad when we were teenagers and who's a friggin' skyscraper now." Dean was close enough to brush his shoulder as he walked, eyes constantly straying over to Sam to make sure he was really okay.

Sam smiled at him. "I love you, too, man."

And he meant it.

00000

When he turned over at two a.m. and saw the empty bed, after he got over his heart attack—_not funny, not funny at all now_—Sam had an idea where to look. He pulled his jeans and jacket onand slipped out the motel door into the chilly night.

The car was still parked right outside, and the sight of it secured something loose and rattling in Sam. Dean had gone but not far, and he was coming back. There had been moments when the anger in his eyes had made Sam doubt. And days before that when the pain in the hazel depths had done the same.

But no, with an unwitting nod to black magick, Dean was all right. His heart healed, there was no death sentence hanging over them anymore.

Sam was still waiting to start breathing again.

He jammed his hands into his jeans pockets and started down the road.

The cemetery was only a few blocks away; Sam had morbidly noted it earlier that day, and seen Dean do the same. The freshness of the grave would have drawn Sam's eye even if the lone figure standing in front of it hadn't. Sam drifted over, trying not to look too hard at the reminders of mortality all around.

Dean had his back to him, and Sam was pretty sure he'd been silent in the soft grass. But as he stopped a few feet behind his brother's bowed shoulders, uncertain, Dean spoke quietly.

"Go back to bed, Sam."

He shook his head, knowing it wouldn't be seen, and moved back a step to slide up onto the top rail of the meandering fence. "No."

"Sam—"

"It was too quiet in the room," he admitted, mostly because it would shut Dean up.

Dean exhaled slowly, and didn't argue.

"Marshall Hall?" Sam finally hazarded a guess.

"Yeah."

Sam nodded, swallowing. He glanced to one side of Dean, inadvertently catching a name etched in stone_, beloved husband and father_. He swallowed again, shivering in the slight breeze.

"Should've been me." Dean's whisper barely carried in the silence.

Heat erupted in his chest. Sam was off the fence and spinning Dean around before he even realized it. He pushed his startled brother back against the headstone. "Don't you say that," Sam said fiercely. "Don't you _ever_ say that."

"Dude—"

He shoved Dean until he was nearly bent in half backward, then roughly let him go and stepped away, blinking fast.

Sam had never felt it before. Not when Dean had gotten hurt on hunts with Sam and Dad, not when the silent telephone prickled Sam's skin, not when the wendigo had taken Dean or the baykok had shot him or the skinwalker had replaced him. Not until Dean had looked up at him with tired, sunken eyes from that hospital bed and said, _I'm gonna die. And you can't stop it. _Sam's defiant, _watch me _had been desperation, not certainty. He'd never felt in danger of being orphaned before, never really _known _Dean was mortal until that moment.

There was no healing that, with black magick, or the banality of words and time.

Dean moved to stand in front of him. Sam frowned in confusion as his hand was grasped. Dean holding hands was just mind-boggling, and Sam searched for a joke, anything to say, when he suddenly felt the flutter under his fingertips.

He looked down, seeing that Dean's hand wasn't holding his. It was curled inside it, the underside of his wrist pressed against the pads of Sam's fingers. The beat of his healed heart was a steady thump against Sam's skin.

He gripped the hand, closed his eyes, and just _felt. _

So fragile, this. He'd always taken it for granted, the immortality of youth extending to his loved ones. But he understood it now, the fear that haunted Dean's eyes when Sam was in danger. The need for him to watch his brother's back to avoid the same. This was what they had and needed; this was what Dean had missed for three years.

This was Sam's job now.

Dean's other hand hooked the back of his neck to drag him down, pressing forehead against forehead. Then his voice, gravelly and tender with understanding, was in Sam's ear.

"You ready to go home?"

Sam counted beats. Nodded.

And finally breathed.

00000

Dean craned his neck to see out the windshield, not that there was that much to see. "You sure you don't want anything? You saw the sign, dude, last stop for ninety-five miles."

Sam arched an eyebrow at the dusty windows and sagging awning. "Not even a hospital? 'Cause I'm thinking after eating at Botulism-R-Us, we might need one."

Dean's mouth twitched. "It's not that bad. Just avoid the mystery meat sandwiches in the cooler."

Sam had already turned back to the book he was reading. "Dean, every meal we've had in the last two days has come out of a vending machine."

"You say that like it's a bad thing."

Sam made a face. "Fine. Bring me back some Tylenol."

"Headache?" Dean's tone shifted, softened.

Sam flung his head up. "Dude, would you just go!"

Dean raised his hands. "Hey, okay, fine. Geez. Maybe we should get you some bran muffins."

Sam opened his mouth, but Dean was already sliding out of the car, beating a strategic retreat. Sam chuffed and bent over his book again.

A tinny mockery of rock-and-roll started playing in the back seat.

Sam looked up, startled, then back, spotting Dean's jacket flung across the seat. He must've left his phone in it, and Sam twisted and reached to dig into the pocket.

_Michael_, the ID flashed, and Sam frowned. The only Michael he could think of was…

He flipped the phone open and said a cautious, "Hello?"

_"Dean?" _came a hesitant, young voice.

It really was him. Sam smiled in surprised pleasure. "Hey, Michael. It's Sam. Dean's in the store. You wanna wait for him?"

_"Oh. Uh, yeah. That'd be good. He said I could call…"_

He did, huh? Sam had missed that conversation, although it made sense when he thought about it. Dean had connected with the boy, both as a kid and as a big brother. And he sometimes left his number with people who'd touched him, a practice Sam had only recently realized. He should have guessed Dean would tell the kid to call him if something came up. "No, man, that's cool. Is everything okay? Asher's fine, right?"

_"Oh, yeah, he's good. I just…wanted to ask Dean something." _

Sam smiled, recognizing that tone from a thousand different conversations with his big brother: _Dean, why's Daddy so sad? Dean, where do the ghosts go when we burn their bones? Dean, why do the girls smile at you like that? _"Yeah, sure. He'll be right out."

And there he was coming already, digging into a bag of Cheetos. Which were Sam's favorite, not his, not to mention the inevitable complaining about the mess of orange crumbs and fingerprints that would follow. Sam shook his head as Dean opened the car door and slid inside.

"What?" his brother asked, looking at him puzzled.

Sam held out the phone. "Michael, for you."

Dean looked the slightest bit busted, but Sam just gave him a quick grin. Dean shoved the bag at him and took the phone, sliding right back out. "Hey, dude, what's up?" was all Sam had a chance to hear before Dean walked to the front of the car, his voice dropping to an indistinguishable murmur.

Sam leaned his head back against the seat, absently munching a handful of Cheetos while he watched Dean. His brother's admission during the shtriga hunt of how he'd "lapsed" in taking care of Sam when they were kids had been a revelation. Sam knew his brother deeply felt a responsibility toward him, but hadn't realized just how far back and how serious it was. It had taken Dean a long time to wind down and sleep after they'd cleaned up Michael's room, bouncing between the walls, topics of conversation, activities. Sam hadn't missed how his eyes had kept seeking out Sam, though. It wasn't hard to see it was his presence and safety that had finally calmed Dean down. Sam had lain wondering long after Dean started snoring just how much Dean had missed him and hurt without him while Sam was at school.

Dean's face was serious as he spoke with Michael. He never talked down to kids, which was probably one of the reasons he connected so well with them. It seemed those big brother genes were pretty hard-wired; they even trickled down to little brother figures. Sam didn't mind sharing.

The conversation finally wound down, Dean smiling when he said good-bye, flipping the phone shut as he climbed back into the car. "You better not have eaten all the Cheetos," he warned.

Sam looked down, then gave Dean a sheepish smile. "Sorry," he said, handing the nearly empty bag over, then nodded toward Dean's pocket. "What did Michael want?"

Dean shook his head and threw the bag in the back, then pulled out a bag of Doritoes from under his plaid overshirt. "Important big brother stuff," he said with due gravitas as he bit into a chip. "You wouldn't understand, Sammy."

Sam scoffed with a smile, turning back to the window.

He wasn't so sure about that.

00000

"So."

Dean wasn't one for awkward conversations, thus the ambiguous greeting brought Sam's head up from his contemplation of the gravel parking lot. "So?"

Dean's shoulders were hunched, hands buried in his pockets, but he leaned back against the hood of his car with casual ease to face Sam. "You and Dad. Looked like you two were getting along pretty well when I got back from the morgue."

"Yeah. Managed not to spill too much blood, anyway." Sam grinned at him.

Dean gave him a _ha, ha_ look. "So…" He fidgeted, and Dean wasn't the fidgeting kind. "You get anything worked out?"

Sam chuckled, wandering over to settle next to Dean on the car. "The man is still impossible, but…yeah, maybe. I think I understand him a little better now, with Jess and all."

"Yeah…"

The odd tone caught his attention, and Sam looked over at his brother. "You're not…I mean, I'm sorry, we weren't trying to leave you out or anything, just, you know, catching up a little."

Dean gave him an amused raise of the eyebrow. "Dude, you think I'm jealous of you two? You know how many times I wanted you to just sit down and talk?"

Sam ducked his head. It was true, Dean had never shown an ounce of envy the rare times Sam and their dad had connected. If anything, he'd seemed happy. Sam had always known family was important to his brother, but he was just starting to get the picture of how much.

"'Sides, I got the man for all those years you were at school. Figure it's your turn."

"Gee, thanks," Sam drawled.

Dean laughed. "C'mon, he's not that bad."

Sam smiled down at the ground. "Yeah, I know."

But he also knew Dad had left Dean to solo a lot, and not by choice. That since Sam had returned, Dean had gone from sleeping curled on his stomach, to spread out on his back like he used to, as if he could afford to let his guard down now. That Dean had switched from the made-up names John had no doubt picked for their credit cards and fake IDs, to band members and horror movie directors with Sam once he was allowed to _play. _That Dean hadn't bothered him at school because through misunderstanding, he'd thought Sam didn't want to see him. And that despite everything, all he wanted was his family back together.

Sam had an idea how that felt now.

He pulled in a breath. "You think this trap's gonna work?"

"With me as bait?" Dean preened. "How can she resist?"

"I'm not sure about that part, Dean. I mean, what if Dad's wrong about the dead man's blood? If you get bitten, I'm not switching to night hunting with you, man." He wasn't as good at using humor to cover fear as Dean was.

Dean met his eyes squarely. "It's gonna work, Sam—Dad might be difficult sometimes, but when's the last time he was wrong?"

Sam opened his mouth.

"Besides, you two are gonna be there as back-up, right?"

His jaw snapped shut. Sam nodded.

A shoulder bumped his. "It'll be good. You'll see."

It might've sounded like bravado, but it was already true.

Dean cleared his throat, twisting back to look at the Impala. "You don't think the car looks like I've been neglecting her, do you?"

Sam rolled his eyes. "Dean, you love this car more than you do me."

It was a total lie, but it had the desired effect. An arm slung around his neck. "Aw, Sammy, don't be jealous." His hair was vigorously mussed. "C'mon, you big girl, we've got some planning to do."

Well, mostly he'd missed his family.

00000

He wouldn't remember until later.

Once upon a time, Dean had jammed him against a bridge in anger at Sam's making light of their family legacy. It was without any irony or memory of that, that Sam slammed him up against the wall of their motel room for doing the same.

All he could think of was those yellow eyes staring at him, that silhouette amidst the flames in the nursery window. So close…he'd been so close. And Dean had pulled him away.

"It's not worth dyin' over," Dean said.

How could he even think that? Sam swallowed. "That thing killed Jess," he argued. Then in terms he knew meant something to Dean, "That thing killed Mom."

Dean's face was tight with emotion. "You said yourself once…that no matter what we do, they're gone. And they're never coming back."

Sam wouldn't remember the reference until later, either.

That was when the rage exploded in him. When the fuel of a year of mourning Jess and hanging on to revenge and slowly absorbing the family mission, met the spark of Dean's implacable argument that it wouldn't help a thing. Flashpoint.

"Don't you say that! Not you. Not after all this, don't you say that!"

Sam didn't even feel the jar of the wall through his fists, the vise-grip of flannel between his fingers. He didn't see Dean's straining, slipping expression for a moment. Not until he heard the faltering words.

"The three of us, that's all we have. And it's all I have. Sometimes I feel like I'm barely holding it together, man. Without you or Dad, I…"

He was fighting the wrong thing, Sam abruptly realized. He sniffed and let go, patting his brother in clumsy apology, and turned away.

He couldn't do this. He couldn't stand against demons and Dean, too. He couldn't break his brother. Sam needed someone to pick up his own pieces.

And there were many. Within hours, another demon ended up nearly beating him to death. Their dad was possessed, and almost killed Dean. Sam shot his father in the leg. He might have shot him in the heart if Dean hadn't begged him not to; Sam would never know.

It wasn't until they were in the car that the final answer came due.

"I thought we saw eye-to-eye on this," his father pushed. "Killing this demon comes first, before me, before everything."

Sam looked up, saw Dean in the rear view mirror. Bleeding. Shattered in body and spirit. Dying.

_It's all I have._

The clutter of revenge, of a normal life, of his abilities, everything else fell away, and the lessons of the last year on the road distilled into a single clear understanding.

"No, sir," Sam answered with certainty. "Not before everything."

He finally got it.

**The End**


End file.
